


prone to cling [and waste these things]

by monovosa



Series: every you every me [2]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2018-05-22 22:19:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6095770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monovosa/pseuds/monovosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it's supposed to say your soulmate's name. instead, it's a twisted mess.</p><p>which, in the end, is probably more telling than anything else.</p><p>[laura's side of sucker love, based on the "your soulmate's name is written..." prompt, but with a twist.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. before

**Author's Note:**

> here we are, chickadees. finally. multiple chapters to this one, ask me for specifics and i'll cry, you should read my earlier installment ["sucker love"] first. or don't, ya rebel.
> 
> to [bellatores](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Bellatores/pseuds/Bellatores) go the praises. you are a godsend of a beta and a wonderful friend.
> 
> to [geoclaire](http://geoclaire.tumblr.com/) go the spoils. you're a hell of a voice of reason and a pretty all right bear.

Your scar- the one that's _supposed_ to tell you the name of your soulmate- started warping before you could even read. This has always struck you as grossly unfair.

So as you’re staring up at the gates of Silas University, you determine that you will not be messing this up as spectacularly as you seem to screw up everything else.

 

* * *

 

The dorms are crowded with kids, chatter bouncing off the narrow walls as they duck and weave in and out of rooms. You do the same, barely avoiding more collisions than you can count as couples push past you to bring their belongings to new homes. You catch your shoulder on a torch that’s posted too low on the wall (it’s not lit, thankfully, but what sort of place even _has_ those?) and someone laughs at you.

You freeze, but there’s a kind smile beneath a head full of curly red hair floating into your vision, and you can’t begrudge her the amusement at your clumsiness. Besides, she seems nice enough, even if her eyes look a little panicky for your liking.

“Lola Perry, floor don. You must be Laura.”

You’re not sure how she’s even able to know that, but you don’t question it, offering your hand once you forget the throbbing in your shoulder and remember your manners. She glances at the gesture for a split second before gingerly bobbing her hand up and down in yours. Her scar is beautiful, small and thin and pale against her even paler wrist. She’s a little chilly to the touch.

“Nice to meet you, Lola.”

“Everyone just calls me Perry,” she says, and nods her head toward another redhead who shoots you a grin so genuine that you feel yourself returning it. “And this is- LaFontaine.”

There’s a pause there that you’d like to decipher, but gift horses and mouths, and-

“It’s nice to meet you too, LaFontaine.”

“Pleasure’s mine. Welcome to Silas, Laura.”

 

* * *

 

Your room is built for two.

You pick a bed- doesn’t really matter which, you think as you listen to the sounds of your wallmates screeching theirs across the floor, presumably to create one big bed- and sit for a while, taking it all in. Your bag sits forlornly where you dropped it next to the dresser and the emptiness of everything sends a pang through the pit of your stomach. At home, your bedroom is painted in shades of yellows and whites, with remnants of your mother’s life dotting the shelves between well-loved books as the posters of your heroes look down. Here, you count cracks in the ceiling and consider the worn wooden bookshelves at the head of the twin beds.

Your books are in boxes, making their way across land and sea to join you next week. You wouldn’t let your dad fly everything you have (including himself) out the same day, because this is for you and for you alone.

The empty bed across from you is a poignant reminder of that little fact.

 

* * *

 

It doesn’t stay empty for long.

 

* * *

 

Your roommate is- well. She’s _annoying_ , actually, and seems to have no respect for personal belongings of any sort. She doesn’t have any manners, either, and the brief horrifying moment where your dad asks to speak to her on the phone makes you feel like crawling under your covers. Thankfully, she’s not in the room when he asks, but you can just imagine the conversation.

She’d probably call him cupcake, too.

What she lacks in propriety and a basic understanding of yours versus hers she makes up for in utter spades of scathing commentary and a complete disinterest in forming human bonds. She keeps strange hours and stranger habits, sipping straight from her carton of soy milk and threatening bodily harm when you ask to borrow a little for your cocoa.

You’d think she’d be more inclined to share, given that she eats her admittedly diminutive weight in the cookies that _you_ buy, but the moment you reach for the carton, she snarls at you.

“Can you _read?_ ”

You can, thank you very much- the carton clearly says _Carmilla_ in scrawled letters directly underneath the all-caps _MINE_. You can read and that’s why you’re asking, like any normal person would.

“I just thought, that since you certainly feel free to eat whatever I-”

“Clearly you didn’t, sunshine.” You furrow your brow and she sighs. “ _Think_. You didn’t think. Touch that carton and I’ll remove the little troll hand it’s in.”

Well then. She flips her book back open and you read the cover- or try to- and you swear she smirks simply because she knows you can’t. It’s in a weird form of German, or something close to.

“Like I said- can you read?”

“Oh, pardon my lack of knowledge of presumably dead languages,” you mutter, and turn back to your blog.

“Pardoned.”

 

* * *

 

Despite your issues with the cretin that’s taken up residency in the bed that mirrors yours, everything else at Silas goes easily enough. The couples still cram the hallways and the university itself resembles Hogwarts, if Hogwarts was less the clever witches and wizards to keep the very legitimate danger at bay, but you’re making friends and your classes are going well. Perry and LaFontaine are a common theme, always ready for a study party (Perry) and for blowing off study parties (LaFontaine), and you meet someone.

You’ve never really dated before because- well, but you think you might be dating your TA.

In any other circumstance you would call this a flagrant disregard of the Student Handbook (which you read because you can, _thank you very much_ , and which contains a substantial section on dating TAs, professors, and the freaking merpeople that inhabit the quad’s goblin-made pond). All that aside, it’s also flying directly in the face of the established, unspoken rule of society: don’t date anyone other than your Other. Despite the rules, which you’re usually very keen on, you can’t help yourself.

Danny is many things, and irresistible happens to be one of them.

She’s awfully smart, for one, and the sight of her walking along the front of your classroom makes your stomach do funny things. She’s also kind, and never puts down a student who asks a question, and her smile is as gorgeous as the rest of her. You like her instantly. You think she feels the same.

“Did you want to maybe take a look at your essay after class? Later tonight, I mean. I could stop by, if you’d like, so you don’t have to- you live on Perry’s floor, right?”

She rambles when she’s nervous. You can’t help but agree before she can work herself into a full-blown rant.

You don’t realise until later that her stopping by means her potentially meeting Carmilla. You make a brave face in the mirror, hand drifting over the scar on your leg, and softly say,

“How bad could it be?”

 

* * *

 

Bad, actually.

 _Worse_ than bad.

You practically hear something snap within Carmilla when Danny walks through the door, arms piled high with notebooks and study aides. That snap turns your head and Carmilla meets your eyes with something akin to surprise, then narrows her sight back to Danny.

“I didn’t know Silas had sentient trees.”

Danny blinks, momentarily taken aback, and then-

“You must be Carmilla.”

You scratch at the top of your thigh and wonder when you mentioned Carmilla to Danny. You don’t recall doing so, but you’re not sure how else she would even know her name. There’s no time to ponder though, because Carmilla is arching an eyebrow and firing back before you can diffuse the situation that has the room suspended in tense air.

“I see the cupcake has been talking about me. How flattering.”

“Cupcake?” Danny looks over to you and you can see the muscles in her forearms flex when she tightens her grip on her books. Your mouth goes dry. “Maybe I should come back later, Laura.”

“What? No. Stay. Carmilla, behave.”

Carmilla points the tips of her fingers (painted immaculately in black, as always, though you’ve never actually seen her painting her nails) and gives you a jaunty salute.

“Yes ma’am.”

You roll your eyes because you’re not sure what else there is to do and beckon to Danny, who is still held awkwardly captive in the middle of the doorway. She takes a step forward, shoots Carmilla another look (the other girl pretends to not notice, her eyes now fixed back on that infernal book) and settles on your bed next to you.

This isn’t exactly how you’d imagined this going- the study session, or the first time you’ve had a girl you liked in your bed, technically speaking- but you make the best of it, and ignore Carmilla’s shitty offhand comments over the next hour and a half.

Your essay improves drastically, anyway, so that’s something.

 

* * *

 

Your mom once told you that people only act out when they’re in pain. Even if it doesn’t seem like it, there is always an explanation, and you’ve found this to be true in every moment where someone is needlessly rude or downright cruel.

You want to honour your mom’s memory, want to cling to it and reflect it back into the world, but even you have limits. Carmilla tests them, walks them like a tightrope. You do your best to just kick her shirts and her stinging comments to the side while making your way through life. You go to class, you write papers, you gently prod at the girl who steals your things and makes you miserable more days than not.

You do pretty well, for the most part, but one night she makes you cry and all you can do is hide under your covers and wish she would just go away. You have to breathe through your nose to calm down, your scar itching and burning away at the top of your thigh until you wonder if one day you’ll just go mad from the pain and the loneliness. You place your palm over the wreck of a name and wish it didn’t even exist.

You know you’re going to be alone. This would be so much easier if your body would stop reminding you.

 

* * *

 

Gods help you, you’re still trying to reach out to Carmilla.

You notice that she has moods that don’t seem to align with her usual snappishness. They’re always brought on by whatever she does when she disappears during the middle of the night- which happens fairly frequently- and usually lead to her throwing random things around the room and stomping about in her leather boots. You learn to stay out of her way when she’s like this. She paces like an angry cat and if you get in the way, she tears you down just as quickly as she can.

You’re aware, in the back of your mind, that this is not healthy. Any sane person would just leave the girl alone and hope that she flunks out soon (which seems probable, as you’re absolutely certain that she doesn’t ever go to class). But sometimes she comes back with bloodied knuckles or bruising on her face, and you don’t want to be the type of roommate who ignores that sort of thing.

“Carmilla,” you say tentatively one night during a mood that seems worse than ever before. You might be suicidal. “Are you okay?”

“Do I fucking _look_ okay?”

You steel yourself with a deep breath and push yourself off the bed to stand in her path. She glares murder at you.

“No, you don’t, which is why I’m asking. Is that- is that blood?”

She follows your gaze down to where a thin red line has etched a path out from underneath the cuff of her gray cotton tee. The shoulder of the shirt is stained with it. Her eyes snap back up to yours.

When did they get so dark?

“Of course not, sweetling,” she says in a tone like syrup. It makes you flinch, but you stand your ground.

“What happened to you?” It comes out softer than you intended. You’re painfully aware that you’re not just asking about her shoulder, but this just isn’t the way that people _are_ , not without reason, and you can’t help but feel you ought to ask.

“Laura.” It comes out a bare whisper. Carmilla takes a step toward you, close enough for you to see the tiny red flecks dashed across the fine points of her cheeks. “Fuck off.”

She’s gone before you can respond, slamming the door behind her. You shake your head and heat flashes through you as you let out the breath you hadn’t realised you were holding.

 

* * *

 

You dream of terror that night for the first time in years.

It comes back to you, every now and again, seemingly random and without a cause that you can pinpoint. Gods know you’ve tried, but there’s just no way to tell. One night you dream of cupcakes riding bicycles. Nothing unusual about that.

The next, you’re howling as you feel your bones break, snapping like twigs, the laughter of some faceless evil haunting you as you try to crawl away. She calls you _my child, my love, my darling_ , and you wake clawing at your throat to get the heel of her boot away. You choke under the pressure of her, chest hollowed out.

Your dad calls you, asking you how you’re doing. You failed a test that day. You haven’t been able to sleep for two nights, for fear of too-loud jazz and red dresses and drowning, drowning, _drowning_. You can feel your mouth water, the taste of dirt and ash as vibrant as when you dreamt it.

“Fine, daddy,” you say in the most cheerful voice you can muster. You ignore the way Carmilla is parroting the words with a smirking, red-stained mouth.

 

* * *

 

You can’t help it- you wonder where she is. You wonder if she’s okay. You wonder if-

But no. You’re sure _that’s_ not it.

It just _can’t_ be.

 

* * *

 

You still can’t sleep. It makes you testy. It makes you _angry_. And just like that, it makes your guard drop.

Your mom was the same, you remember. One night of poor sleep and she was prone to snap at the littlest of things before baring her heart to you. It’s a small, strange comfort, but it’s all you’ve got.

“What did you mean, you’re in pain? Do you- do you need to see a doctor, or something?”

The words make you fumble with the mug your dad bought for you while you were going through the worst of your Doctor Who phase (not that it’s really let up). You save the cup and set it down with the care it deserves before addressing Carmilla. She looks stupefied and part of you wants to laugh, but you’re too tired to guarantee it won’t end in tears. Carmilla doesn’t _get it_.

“My name burns,” you say finally, tired and weary of the conversation, but unable to stop. “I mean, not  _my_  name. My Other’s name.”

Carmilla calls her your soulmate. You almost can’t believe it. If she wasn’t chewing on her lip like she does when she says more than three words and none of them are cruel, you’d think you misheard.

“That’s oddly sentimental. Y’know, for you.”

You expect her to snap. She defies the odds one more time.

“Mine is dead.”

Your first instinct is to apologise. Your second is to cry because- what if- oh, _gods_ , you can’t do this.

(But you do. You go to her because, like it or not, you’re somehow in this fucked up thing _together_ , two alone girls just trying to wade through the oceans of people who can hold the hand of their future any time they damn well please.)

 

* * *

 

Before you met Carmilla, you thought you might have the weirdest sleeping schedule of anyone in the wide world. You’ve never been good at bedtimes, mostly because you’ve never been good at time management. Instead, you save work, making space around the things you actually enjoy doing, and are then forced to catch up in a binge right before those less pleasant things are due. It’s how you’ve been your whole life and you really don’t see that changing.

So it’s a little strange when you actually manage to get your midterm work done on time. For lack of anything better to, you find yourself in bed at a godly hour.

You’re mostly asleep when Carmilla creeps in through the window, as she is occasionally wont to do. You can feel her gaze at you for a moment before she slips into the bathroom, the sound of the shower apparent a few moments later. You drift along the white noise.

You’re definitely asleep whenever she emerges because you aren’t aware of her undressing for bed, but you’re _quite_ aware when a noise outside pulls you from your (pleasant) dreams. You blink in the darkness of the room, watching Carmilla’s hips wander back and forth as she prepares for bed. It strikes you as you struggle in the fog of bare consciousness that you’ve never really seen her do this before; she’s usually in bed by the time you return to the room, or she’s already left to do whatever it is that Carmilla does before dawn.

She’s in some kind of sleep shorts and her hair is piled messily on top of her head. It isn’t fair, you think, for someone to be so pretty without trying. And, despite your differences and difficulties, you don’t _mind_ admitting that Carmilla is gorgeous. Anyone with eyes can see that. She’s just- well, _Carmilla_.

She’s clearly looking for something. You picked up earlier and threw her clothes in the hamper she completely refuses to use so you watch her with no small amusement as she huffs quietly and drops to her knees to look under her bed. When she rocks back onto her heels, your heart freezes in your chest.

You can’t make out any of the letters in the lack of light, but when Carmilla turns to glance behind her, a sliver of moonlight catches her bare chest and you can see the flash of a scar. It’s far larger than yours, disappearing under the cups of her bra on both sides. Her entire sternum is a burnt mess of letters and your knee jerks at the sudden flash of pain that shoots up from the false name etched into the skin of your leg.

The movement spooks Carmilla and even though your eyes slam shut, you can tell she’s moving over to her dresser with stiff steps. She must grab the first shirt she finds- the rustle of fabric is almost immediate- and then she’s in her bed, the coils squeaking.

“Laura?” She whispers, and you try to remember the last time she has said your actual name. You will your breathing to stay even. “Laura, did- are you awake?”

She seems satisfied when you don’t answer, the bed protesting as she rolls over, and you let your fingers sneak down to dig into your burning thigh.

A sudden thought occurs to you, and it’s so insane that you almost laugh out loud and ruin everything.

 _No_ . There’s just- there’s just _no way_.

Oh my _God,_ what is _wrong with you_?

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [bellatores](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Bellatores/pseuds/Bellatores) is a goddamn saint for putting up with me moaning for a year and a half about how i should probably update this story... and then a saint again for being kind enough to read it for the billionth time. thank you, pal.
> 
> you are ALSO a saint if you're still reading this work.

Danny quietly asks you out after one of your classes. You agree over the sensation of your heart racketing around your ribcage, so loud that you’re halfway convinced that Danny can hear it. She grins that wide, easy smile that you like so much when you say yes and promises to take you out on the best date available in Silas.

It isn’t glorious, but you aren’t wearing glass slippers either, so what can you really expect?

She offers to walk you back to your dorm room after dinner. You think back to your room, with your collection of things from a past life that seems dim and fuzzy, and the cut of Carmilla’s figure on the bed across from you. You think of the scar across her chest, of the way her blood looks against her pale, pale skin, and you suck in a lungful of the still evening air.

“Let’s go back to your place.”

-

Her hands are carding through your hair, tugging you down into long, sweet kisses that leave your chest heaving and your head spinning. You swallow Danny’s throaty noises with your lips, eating each one up as they escape from her. Her hands can’t seem to decide on where to land- they smooth along your shoulders, your back, your hips, and once, miraculously, your ass- before you take them into your own and cup them to your breasts.

“Laura…” Danny’s voices has gone thin in a way you’ve never heard and you decide you like it. You roll your hips because you don’t want there to be any mistaking your intentions. She doesn’t seem to mind. “You have to tell me to st…”

“Don’t you dare,” you whisper, squeezing your paired hands once and returning your own to her shoulders. “Unless you don’t want to do this, don’t you dare.”

She pulls back after a second, meeting your eyes with purpose. There’s something there, something deep underneath what you’re doing, and she waits until you lean close and press your lips to her ear.

“Please,” you say, and there’s no more words after that.

-

You leave afterward, kissing a drowsing Danny and promising to come by tomorrow. She mumbles something that you don’t catch in your hurry to get out of the room, bra stuffed into your bag and hoodie zipped up to your throat.

You stop walking once you’re well clear of the house, doubling over and stifling a cry into the sleeve of your hoodie as you wrap your fingers around the cramping muscle of your thigh.

-

You find yourself in Danny’s bed again not long after, legs tangled and _Lost Boys_ filtering softly from her laptop. You’re talking about everything and nothing and you’re just trying to breathe as her hand skates back and forth along the curve of your waist. The tips of her fingers catch against the edge of your shirt, but she doesn’t seem to pay it any mind, eyes trained on the glowing screen. The pass of her blunt nails distracts you and you press a kiss to the collar of her tee shirt. She hums.

“How’re things with fang face?”

You blink, shaking away your thoughts. “With what?”

“Carmilla,” Danny clarifies with a little chuckle. “Have you not heard that nickname before? Oh, you should hear the way LaF says it, they get this tone and it’s-”

“Why fang face?” You wonder out loud. Danny promptly shuts up and you narrow your eyes. “Danny, why fang face?”

Her hand pulls away as she shakes her head with her lips pressed together in a hard line. It reminds you of the doctors and it sends a thrill of dread through you.

“Oh- nothing. Nothing, really. Except we just…”

You stand up, bumping the laptop in your haste to leave. Danny calls out after you.

“Laura- Laura! I didn’t mean anything by it, where are you-”

You corner LaF in Perry’s room, one glance at the taller of the two enough to send her scurrying with mutters of _surely there are more things to wipe_ _down_ and _where did I leave my steel wool_? LaF gulps at the look in your eye.

“Why is it funny to call Carmilla fang face?”

They tell you and the world tips to its side. For once, everything seems clearer that way.

-

“It’s just a theory,” LaF whispers miserably to you the next day in lecture. You’ve no idea how they even got here, they should be in the Physics wing, but you won’t question after an answer you won’t receive. As it is, you flip your hair over your shoulder.

“It doesn’t matter,” you say primly. “I’m very for- vampire rights.”

You aren’t certain that’s a thing outside of the _Sookie Stackhouse_ series, but it seems like the sort of statement you ought to make right off the… bat.

Damn.

-

Vampire rights must include being the world’s best and most understanding roommate because one day, Carmilla comes in and she’s bleeding _everywhere_.

You yell at her at first- you aren’t supposed to be here, but you can’t quite face Danny, the person that Carmilla believes you’re supposed to be visiting just now- before you notice that Carmilla’s ruining your Christmas welcome mat with glops of blood. You really wish you could describe it some other way, but it’s sort of… falling out as opposed to trickling out like it normally would, and you have to breathe in deeply through your mouth to keep from passing out.

“I- holy shit, Carm, what the hell happened? Come here, let me-”

She looks about ready to bite you, but you’ve no other choice: though you aren’t sure vampires can even bleed out, this cannot be good for her health. Besides, you haven’t quite proven the whole vampire thing. It’s really just better to not risk it.

You reach for her shirt because the staining indicates that’s where the mess is coming from and suddenly she’s snarling, hands in claws and swiping at you, desperate to keep you at bay. Vampire or not, you’re really not interested in losing your head to your roommate, so you give her some space and breathe in through your mouth again.

“Easy, Carmilla, easy. I’m backing off.”

She quiets a little, even as the veins her neck pulse and her chest heaves with exertion. Your hands reach back out when she starts to pitch forward.

“Get me the carton.” It takes you a moment, okay? Your roommate- and possible child of the night- is glop-bleeding literally everywhere. “In the fridge, dimwit.”

Okay, _rude_ , but this is Carmilla and she’s hurt, so you do as she asks. She rips the container from your hands and drinks it in a series of starved gulps, dark red lines pooling in the corners of her mouth and tracking down her neck. You feel the world tip again.

She makes a satisfied little noise when she finishes a moment later, doesn’t bother to wipe at the blood that’s lining the grooves of her throat. You stare, transfixed. You don’t mean to.

“Ah, shit,” she mutters when she finally looks back to you. Her eyes are lidded and her pupils are blown and there is something about this- no, everything about this should not be even remotely sexy, but it _is_. Your soulmate might be dead or nonexistent or whatever, but you’re still such a _lesbian_ and there is one satisfied woman in front of you.

Yeah, you totally hate yourself.

“So I’m a-” she begins, and the urge to laugh hysterically bubbles up in your throat. You fight it down.

-

You end up going to LaF because you don’t know what else to do. Your roommate is a vampire and her scar covers her entire chest and she says her soulmate- not her Other, her freakin’ soulmate- is dead, but you think she might be lying.

Wouldn’t be the first time.

So you need fresh eyes on this, so to speak, and possibly enough of that chem society vodka to drown out the voices in your head that insist _what if? what if? what if?_ So you trudge to LaF and Perry’s room with your bag full of the books for classes you won’t be attending today and knock softly.

“I need to talk.”

The door swings open immediately and LaF greets you, clearly still dressed for bed. You realise it’s just past seven in the morning.

“Oh, God, I’m such a-”

“Come in,” LaF says firmly, wrapping a hand around your wrist and tugging. “I’ve been expecting you.”

You glance worriedly toward the bed as you’re dragged in, but it’s pristinely made and Perry is nowhere to be seen. LaF’s laptop is open to some science page and there’s a mug of coffee steaming next to it so you feel slightly less guilty for barging in, but you’re still uncomfortable. You gesture at the desk with the hand not held captive by your friend.

“If you’re busy…”

“I don’t have class till later,” they reassure you, “so sit down and tell me what is going on.”

You do as told, perched on the edge of their bed, hands clasped anxiously between your knees.

“Carmilla is definitely a vampire and she keeps getting hurt and I don’t know why but when I try to help she flips out and also she has a scar and I think she’s a liar but I don’t want to die so I’m not going to say that and I need you to help me figure out if maybe this-” your palm is working into a frenzy over the top of your leg- “is her.”

“Oh, shit,” is all LaF has to say.

You agree.

-

Carmilla ends up sleeping for days.

She _is_ healing after all, but there’s a special misery in watch her labour for breath, in watching her deceptive, thin frame rattle with the effort. She wakes infrequently and when she does, you push a carton of blood into her hands rather than trying to speak.

Never mind that you’ve forged a vampire ID (which, _what_ ) to get the blood and you’ve had several agonising conversations with LaF about the nature of the truly inconvenient crush you’ve developed on your roommate. None of it matters. All that matters is that she’s safe and-

Well, that’s a whole other complicated affair. You thrust another carton at her. She drinks greedily and slips back into a sleep like the dead. Which- also that. Huh. Okay.

So… things are going well.

-

Sometime during the second day and a billion missed calls and texts from your maybe-girlfriend definitely-not-Other, said maybe-girlfriend definitely-not-Other kicks down the door. Literally, boot to wood.

She scares the living shit out of you in the process. Your heart hammers as your body rams itself out of its well-worn position next to Carmilla and you manage to scuff yourself along the linoleum floor before righting yourself and drawing up to glare at her.

Which would really be more effective if she wasn’t a billion feet taller than you- usually part of the hotness factor and now just supremely irritating- but still. You turn on your most effective glare and puff out your chest to make yourself seem scarier.

“What the frick are you doing?”

She has the good grace to look ashamed, her mouth open as she looks at Carmilla and back at you. You belatedly think of your nightie (not the sexy kind, you think with a strange sort of remorse) and unwashed hair and Carmilla sleeping and the little spot on the (her) bed that’s pretty obviously Laura-shaped, but refuse to back down. There’s nothing happening here. There isn’t. Just a vampire trying to heal and her rightfully but not overly concerned roommate who doesn’t want her to die because… well, actually, any replacement _ever_ would be a better roommate than Carmilla, but that’s beside the point, and she’s already dead now that you give that a ponder, and where were you going with this?

Right. Danny. Tall, lovely, confused Danny, especially so now that your phone is ringing and therefore clearly on so it’s obvious you’ve just been ignoring her this whole time.

“I’m gonna have to call you back,” you hiss into the phone at your dad and turn your eyes back to your definitely-no-longer-maybe-girlfriend definitely-not-Other.

-

Carmilla wakes up the next day and stays up, struggling to her feet while you watch with not an inconsiderable amount of anxiety. Her voice is all croaky and absolutely not sexy. You answer her questions by regaling her with the tale of how Danny broke down the door and how worried you all were, never mind that Danny was only worried about you and maybe you both ended up in tears when you asked her for space. It’s fine. This is fine.

Carmilla thanks you, actually _thanks you_ , and that is just about enough to send you into cardiac arrest. You hear yourself tell her that everyone was worried about her over the thundering of your own heart. It’s not what you mean and it’s silly to keep repeating it, but she seems to understand in her own weird Carmilla way.

Everything is different from there on out.

-

She sees your scar.

She sees your scar, _really_ sees it, and your heart pounds so hard in your chest that it’s painful and you’re missing a movie that you really love but can’t focus on for shit because she _saw_ your _scar_.

She’s Carmilla though, so she brushes it off in a stupidly lovely way and watches the movie that you love that she really hates. You’re pressed thigh-to-thigh with her on one side and Danny on the other in some kind of trope-ridden nightmare, and the tingling is so much stronger on the Carmilla side that you’d roll your eyes at your own damn self if you didn’t know at least half of it was due to the scar acting up. Which, frankly, is a sensation you’re sick of these days.

Anyway, she sees your scar, and the world doesn’t exactly end.

-

“It’s not ugly,” she tells you the next day. It takes you a moment before you catch on and when you do, ice runs through your stomach like a shot.

You thank her because it’s the thing to do and also she’s being uncommonly kind again, considering it’s Carmilla. You tell her about who your Other might be- a girl, that is. Carmilla looks like she might pass out and the ice in your stomach turns over. You wonder if you’ll be sick. Would that be a tell-tale sign, puking in front of Carmilla right after talking about your Other? Maybe she’ll pass out before you puke and you’ll be saved. Maybe the gods will actually smile on you for once and just strike you both dead.

(She doesn’t, you aren’t, doesn’t matter, she doesn’t, and they don’t, but it’s a close call, all around.)

-

You go out drinking with LaF one night and Carmilla is in tiny little shorts when you get back, an Ouija board splashed across her chest. You swallow down some water.

“Do you think we’ll ever find love? Since yours is gone and mine is… lost.”

“How the fuck should I know, cutie?”

An apt question. You finish your water and go to bed, dreamless.

-

You wrestle your way through the end of the semester. Things with Carmilla are peaceful enough, even on the days where your classes make you tense enough to snap and then you find yet another empty box of cookies hiding out underneath your desk and it makes you finally snap. Honestly, how a vampire manages to eat more Keebler than you do is some sort of weird satanic miracle. You settle for passively-aggressively leaving the packages all over her yet-unused desk in a kind of pathetic retribution. It’s totally working.

Somewhat.

Whatever.

You put on a tight-fitting dress and say you’re going out and smugly watch Carmilla snort blood down the front of a rarely stainable not-black shirt.

Revenge is sweet. You go to LaF’s and ask them not to ask before stealing a pair of sweats.

-

There’s one day, just one, where you wake up in the late morning and hum into a stretch, reveling in the pull on your muscles and the chance to wake up without an alarm. You roll over sometime later, loose and comfy as all get-out, and open your eyes to check the clock that teeters precariously on your dresser.

You catch Carmilla in supposed slumber in doing so, her arm draped over the side of her bed. You’d believe she’s asleep, but her hair is in a suspiciously well-gathered bun, and her shirt isn’t wrinkled in the slightest.

You know you shouldn’t grin so widely, but you do, especially once she blinks and pretends to yawn and look at you for the ‘first’ time that morning.

“Staring at me, cutie?”

“You wish,” you say, and it comes out fond.

-

You find her packing.

She’s wearing her favourite shirt- the one you said wasn’t totally heinous that one time she accompanied you for five seconds to a school dance, which was admittedly tooth-numbingly lame in accordance with Carmilla’s snarky prediction- and there’s the familiar outline of bandages ridging her back. It’s a dark shirt (of course) but there’s a weird spot at the base of her spine that doesn’t catch the light. You realise it’s because blood has soaked through.

Something in you splinters clean in two.

You grab Carmilla without thinking and spin her around without trying, and really, where’s that famed vampire strength at? You’re about to scoff at her when she laughs at you, and if you weren’t already halfway to pissed, that’d about do it.

“Don’t you laugh at me. Do you think I’m an idiot?”

There’s something in her that breaks too, but differently: her whole body seems to soften, caving inward like you’d tugged strings.

You know her too well. You hate her. You-

Never mind. Back to business. Bleeding Vampire, Take II.

She lets you take off her shirt. You hope you imagine the tremble in both of you as you do so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come yell at me about the worst update schedule ever (or encourage me to finish this nonsense already) - i'm on tumblr @ monovosa.

**Author's Note:**

> follow monovosa @ tumblr for a chat and updates. i rarely bite.


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